And with that, the final pawn of this year’s console war has fallen. We now know the price for not only Xbox’s newest bluetooth speaker that actually contains an entire gaming console, but also T H E M O S T P O W E R F U L C O N S O L E E V E R M A D E.
The Xbox Series S (a digital-only version of it’s bigger brother the Series X) is going to cost us gamers $299, and the Series X will cost $499. Both consoles will be released on November 10th, the Tuesday before Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War is set to release. And in the following 2-3 weeks, players will also be able to pick up Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Cyberpunk 2077 to play on these next-gen beasts.
Am I surprised by these prices? No not really after last week’s Nvidia conference. The fact that they are releasing thier next gen of graphics cards at the same pricepoint as current gen cards still blows my mind. But when you’re releasing a card for $699 that is as powerful as one of your $1200 cards, the console prices make sense. And I think honestly, the people that buy the consoles are getting a hell of a deal considering they’re basically only paying for the card and all the other components are coming for free. And that’s how consoles should work: they should be an affordable option for the everyday gamer.
Now the ball is entirely in PlayStation’s court. Do they undercut the Series X/S? Do they list the PS5 and PS5 “Lite” at higher price points to market thier consoles as a more premium product? Or do they simply match Xbox and ride thier exclusives?
I think Option C is the best way to go personally. Xbox literally has no way to compete with you until Halo Infinite releases, and you’ve got a list of exclusives to release until then. You have the upper hand PlayStation, now you simply have to play into thiers and you will once again win this generation’s console war.
In the interim, enjoy the Xbox Series X memes:
